Random 2
by Starchains
Summary: Random stories and snippets, based on one-word prompts. Prompt Three - Move, Tsuna and Ryou Bakura
1. Masking Tape

**Warning - this is dark, with references to the rape, torture and murder of a sixteen-year-old**

* * *

**Masking Tape**

"Let me go! Nii-sama is coming! He'll find me!" Mokuba cried as he struggled against the ropes around his wrists, holding him suspended on his tiptoes in the centre of the well-lit room.

"No, he's not, Moku-chan," Lussuria told him, in a mockery of a gentle, reassuring voice. "As far as your brother knows, you're on your way to Italy. And I'm afraid I can't let you go. It wouldn't do to ruin my record! I am Varia, after all."

Mokuba froze, stopping his struggling. Nii-sama had told him about the Varia. They were a group of assassins, a part of the Italian Mafia, and they never failed. According to Nii-sama, they had been the ones to kill Gozuburo and make it look like suicide. He had been taught about the weaknesses and flaws of other potential kidnappers and assassins, things to avoid or exploit. There was nothing like that to learn about the Varia.

"You've heard of us! I'm flattered." Lussuria gave the boy a flamboyant bow, before straightening and stalking in a circle around him. Mokuba Kaiba was currently sixteen, on the cusp of adulthood. He was tall and lean like his brother, well-muscled for his age. He was perfect. Lussuria licked his lips.

"What are you doing with that?" Mokuba asked, no longer able to hdie the fear in his voice, as Lussuria picked a roll of masking tape up off a small table. Mokuba had been trying to avoid looking at the table. He didn't know what on it was more terrifying; the scalpels or the condoms.

"I'm making a picture!" Lussuria trilled brightly as he laid out the masking tape on the floor. It took fifteen minutes for him to finish. By the time he was done, Mokuba was stood in the middle of what looked like a family crest.

"This is the crest of the Bertesca Family! When I'm done, it will look very dramatic, don't you think?" He stared at Mokuba, waiting for an answer.

"Dramatic?" Mokuba wasn't sure he wanted to know how masking tape could be dramatic.

"I cover the floor in your blood, of course, Moku-chan. When it's dry, I peel up the tape, and there's the crest on the floor! They get the blame, your brother destroys them, and our employer takes over the market while Kaiba Corp is in chaos! So don't worry, Moku-chan, your death will cause a lot of good things for some very important people!" Lussuria sounded gleeful as he explained. Normally he wouldn't, but the poor dear deserved to know what he was dying for. Besides, it wasn't as though he would tell anyone.

"No. Nii-sama won't fall for this. This won't work. Just let me go. Please. Please, Varia-sama, please," Mokuba was crying now, and begging. He knew he should be embarrassed to be collapsing like this. He had been kidnapped before, after all. He was a Kaiba, he wasn't weak. But this man had no interest in him as a hostage. There would be no daring escapes for him. There was no way out of this.

"I have plenty of time to play, so I think I should have some fun now, before I have to break this lovely body. Do you like that idea, Moku-chan?" Mokuba closed his eyes as he heard Lussuria grab something off the table. He didn't want to know what was coming.

"Nii-sama is coming," he whispered. He fixed his brother's face in his mind. Nii-sama was strong, and brave, and smart. He would figure this out, he would find him. Nii-sama would come.

Lussuria laughed as he ripped Mokuba's shirt away.


	2. Mess

**Mess**

Reborn watched as the boy ate his cream puff. His new student was a mystery. He had been on the move constantly since he was a baby, never spending more than a month at a school, or a year in a country. His father, the recently deceased Boss of the Cetrulli Family, had apparently told his son that he was an archaeologist, even going so far as to send letters and souvenirs from the countries he was supposedly visiting. He did a better job of covering his tracks than that idiot Iemitsu, and his son had broken down crying when Reborn had informed him of his death.

Ryou Bakura was never supposed to be touched by the Mafia. His twin sister, Amane, had been the oldest of the pair. When the twins were seven she had been taken to Italy to be raised and trained, and Ryou had been told that she had died in a car crash. Amane was a perfect Boss. She was smart, driven and charismatic. A Sky almost as pure as Tsuna, she had effortlessly won the loyalty and love of her Family, and was poised to lead the Cetrulli into the new future that Tsuna was crafting for the Mafia. All that had fallen apart when a bomb planted in their car killed Amane, her father and their three bodyguards.

Since Amane had left, Ryou had had little contact with his father, and obviously none at all with his sister. He didn't seem to have questioned the fact that he was raised by a steady stream of blank faced, well-armed 'babysitters'. He reminded Reborn of Nana; quiet, compliant and unquestioning of the strangeness around him. An excellent trait for a relative or spouse, an awful one in a Boss.

So Reborn had expected to have a lot of work in front of him. He had expected to have to build the boy up, to tear away his blinkers and make him actually look at the world. With the boy's deliberate ignorance, he had expected to be starting with less than nothing. What he got managed to be even worse.

The boy was determined to stay in Domino City. He had moved there a year ago without informing his bodyguards, not that he could have because his most recent had fallen into a coma. Ryou had been followed by a trail of students falling asleep and not waking up, making his father fear that he was being tracked by a Mist of some skill. The string of comas had not followed the boy to Domino City, so obviously the boy did a better job of hiding himself than his bodyguards did.

There, he had befriended a rather mixed group, which Reborn would ordinarily be pleased with. The ability to connect to people, especially people of different types, was a useful skill in a Boss. There was only one problem. Ryou wasn't refusing to leave simply because he had friends. Reborn could have dealt with that, easily moving the useless ones away and folding the assets into the Family. No, this problem wasn't so easy to solve. One of his friends, Yugi Moto, was a Sky. He practically radiated Sky flames, almost as strong as Tsuna. And unlike his Sky sister, Ryou Bakura was a Rain. If he had to guess, the boy might have secondary Sun or Lightning, maybe even Mist, but no Sky.

The only possible Boss candidate had Harmonized with a complete outsider. According to Mafia law, that meant that Yugi Moto was now the Boss of the Cetrulli Family. What a mess.


	3. Move

**Move**

A new month, a new town, a new school. His father didn't keep tabs on him at all but he was fairly prompt at signing paperwork Ryou sent him, so it was easy for him to move as pleased. Ryou wasn't sure if it was proof of his trust in Ryou, or if he just never read what he signed. Certainly he had never asked Ryou why he was moving schools every few months.

There had been no schools left in the vicinity of his last home, so it had been time to move again. The people falling into comas around him scared him, and he was terrified that if he stayed still, he would be next. His new home was a quiet town called Namimori. There were five schools in the area; Namimori Middle School, the closest, Simon Middle School, the furthest away, Midori Middle School and Yumei Private Middle School, both elite schools with tough entrance exams, and Kokuyo Middle School, a rundown school with rumours of gangs and drugs. He could cope with all of them, since he had attended far worse schools that Kokoyu and far more elite that Yumei, but he decided to start with Namimori Middle. Close, not too advanced, with a good reputation. Maybe this one would be the one where the comas would finally stop.

He pulled on his ugly beige uniform and sighed. The one good point of Kokuyo Middle was that the uniform wasn't completely hideous. He brushed his hair, hoping that there weren't going to be any teachers who made a fuss about it. Someone threw a fit over it every third school or so, but so far he'd managed to avoid having to cut it.

School that day was completely normal for a first day. He had the routine down to an art now. Arrive, hand in the paperwork, collect his schedule, dodge questions about his parents, smile politely, keep smiling as he's introduced, and stay quiet. He wasn't looking to make friends.

That didn't stop his heart from going out to the small boy with fluffy hair in PE. He listened as everyone whispered "Dame-Tsuna" and "please say I don't have to work with him" as they paired up for tennis. Ryou sighed. Damn his bleeding heart.

"Hello," he said to the boy, who jumped and shrieked, not having noticed his approach. "My name is Bakura Ryou. Would you like to be partners?"

"Uh, sure," the boy stuttered. "I'm Sawada Tsunayoshi."

Tsunayoshi really was as bad as the whispers had made him sound, but Ryou didn't mind. Eventually, they even managed to laugh together as the ball flew all over the court. After the third time Tsunayoshi had tripped over his own feet running to retrieve it, Bakura had offered to fetch it for them. Despite Tsunayoshi's embarrassment, they were both breathless with laughter by the end of the lesson.

Despite his resolve not to make friends, he found himself growing close to Tsuna. Together, they hid from Hibari-san when he tried to 'bite them to death' for crowding, and they did their homework together in the library. Tsuna wasn't good at academics, but he was willing to let Bakura tutor him, and his marks started to increase. Before he knew it, a month had gone by without any comas, and he dared to hope that the problem had gone away.

Finally, he plucked up the courage to invite Tsuna round to his house. He had had the itch to carve a figurine for him last night, and he was pleased with how it came out. A Beast Tamer – for some reason it seemed to fit him, despite the almost comical fear he had of any kind of animal.

Tsuna was happy to spend the evening playing role-play games with him. Bakura thought the novelty of having friends to share this kind of thing with was as new to Tsuna as it was to him. He smiled at Tsuna as he showed into the apartment and fetched snacks for them. Then he blinked.

And it was morning. What had happened? Groggily he climbed out of bed. It had been a while since he had had a blackout, and he hoped it hadn't made things too awkward for Tsuna. He had been looking forward to that game. As he made his way to the kitchen, he saw the light blinking on the answering machine. Had his Dad called?

Heart swelling with hope, he picked up the phone.

"Hi, Ryou-kun! Tsu-kun's in the hospital, did anything happen when he was at your house? He probably fell and hit his head on the way home, he's such a clumsy boy. I'm sure that when he wakes up, he'll love to see you! Bye bye!" Sawada Nana's cheerful voice chirped.

Bakura dropped the phone.


End file.
